Archive for
March, 2012

Giving vitamins to a cat requires stealth and fortitude. I am especially proud of my technique. When the cat is not looking, prepare the medicine dropper containing 1 ml of vitamin syrup. Then approach the cat casually, keeping the medicine dropper out of sight. Pretend that you were about to do something else and only stopped to pet the cat. Tickle the cat under the ear, and then hold her by the scruff of her neck.

Keep your wrist firm, as if you’re hitting a volley to Roger Federer. Then when the cat opens her mouth to protest being grabbed, squeeze the contents of the medicine dropper into her mouth with your other hand.

The first few times you try this the cat may bite and scratch and your wrist may seem like the site of several suicide attempts. However, cats respect strength and will eventually offer only token resistance.

Auntie Janey is taking this week off to obsess about the romantic lives of Jon Snow (How can I get him to break his oath of celibacy?) and Daenerys (Could she hook up with Jon Snow? But what if he’s not really Ned Stark’s son, but a Targaryen??)

As you know, the second season of Game of Thrones premieres on Sunday, 1 April 2012. The teasers seem to suggest that the Red Wedding of the third book will figure in the second season. Aaaaaaa! Must they hasten our traumas?

While Auntie Janey plays matchmaker to various claimants of the Iron Throne, we call upon you, our helpful readers, to write the agony column this week. Tell us how to spot a philandering partner. What are the clues? Must we really check their text messages and facebook accounts? Better yet, tell us stories of dirty rotten lying cheaters and how they were caught, drawn and quartered.

To those who like walking, this city offers a choice between getting sideswiped by a jeepney or contracting lung disease. If you want to stretch your legs in the open air you have to take your walk inside one of the ghettoes (Forbes, San Lorenzo etc), eliciting the suspicion of security guards (Not only are you a stranger, but you’re not driving!), or wait until the weekend when the Makati business district is mostly empty.

The UP campus is a great place to walk; getting there in this traffic is a tribulation. (By the way, has the crime situation been dealt with?) We end up going to the mall and walking back and forth, forth and back, seeing the same stores and the same displays over and over until we buy something out of sheer boredom.

A few weeks ago, to relieve our tedium, we decided to take a walk at Bonifacio High Street. The weather must really be broken because this summer is balmy, not infernally hot. Lately it’s been cloudy, which is our favorite weather for walking. We were walking down the street when we noticed this.

We felt like Balboa on first seeing the Pacific Ocean, yes our lives need excitement. The High Street has been extended! And the new complex is actually nice, with wide paths and lots of places for people to sit (Serendra is cramped, fussy and the artworks are too big for the space; the older High St looks like an outlet mall in Nevada).

The new restaurants look interesting: Italian, Japanese, Mediterranean/Asian (Mediterrasian?), Filipino, desserts, juice. We had the Reuben sandwich and the red beet burger, both very good although Ricky thinks the red beet should be served as a wrap rather than a sandwich. Last night Otsu had the salad with caramelized onion tarts and we had the beef belly, both very good. For dessert we had the Cecilia: meringue and coconut cream works.

Another suggestion: The stairs leading to the fountain are nice, just the right height, but at nighttime the edges are hard to see. They need to put more lights (but that would take away the effect of the lights under the plant boxes) or attach some sort of fluorescent thingy on the edges so people with poor depth perception (points to self) don’t stagger.